Manchester's Band on the Wall has been a staple of the up and coming music scene for years now, but on Christmas Eve it was filled from corner to corner with some of the biggest names in music - all there to support Harlowe Montauk as she closed out her Rainbow Tour of Europe. Harlowe has brought several famous friends out for earlier dates of the tour but tonight was the piece de resistance in a tour meant to bring her back to the forefront of the scene she was forced to abandon several years ago.
The show catered to an intimate crowd of only 300 fans, all winners of an instagram scavanger hunt put on by Harlowe and her friends and started with a shocking surprise. The singer has opened each of her sets this tour with her feminist power house hit 'Woman' but the lights on the stage remained dark as the familiar gothic strings of Taylor Swift's 'Look What You Made Me Do' roused the crowd to a frenzy. At first it seemed the cover was just that, a cover in honor of Montauk's close friend, but halfway through one of the cat mask wearing backup dancers tore off her mask to reveal the Queen of the Snakes herself. The reaction from Montauk's fans was intense and the singers were forced to pause their performance just to let the crowd gather itself before powering through to the end, making sure to include a cheeky "The old Harlowe and Taylor can't come to the phone right now..."
Following Swift's dramatic entrance, she and Harlowe went through a small set of songs off her new album Reputation including 'I Did Something Bad', 'Don't Blame Me', 'Ready For It', 'This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things' and 'Gorgeous' which Montauk covered previously at a show in Hollywood. Perhaps the most interesting cover choice during the short set with Taylor was a song off of her third studio album 'Speak Now'. It was odd not only because Swift has well moved past the Speak Now phase of her career but because Harlowe's ex-boyfriend Andrew Sutcliffe was in attendance with new girlfriend New Rules songstress Nicola Parr. Perhaps that was the reason that heads seemed to snap in the couple's direction as the catchy riff that starts off Swift's petty dig at a boyfriend stealer 'Better Than Revenge' echoed through the small performance space.
Intentional or not the song garnered an intense reaction from fans and by the time Taylor's time on stage was done it was almost as though it was her show and not Harlowe's everyone had come to see. Swiftie fever was briefly lived as Harlowe transitioned into songs of her own, starting with her catchy first hit 'Tik Tok' and the earwormy 'C'mon'. Producer and collaborator Max Jakobs joined her for performances of Rainbow, Boogie Feet, Boots and Learn to let go before Harlowe was joined by yet another celebrity surprise guest, close friends Haim for a stripped down performance of her hit single 'Your Love Is My Drug". The girls also joined her for a cover of 'The Loving Kind' by the UK's own Girls Aloud, a girl group Montauk claimed was one of the best the Brits had to offer.
Next on the docket was an outfit change into one that resembled something more familiar to Harlowe's longtime fans - sparkly and skimpy and a perfect match to a scathing remixed cover of IDFWU, Loyal, and Jealous. The performance (done only once so far on this tour) is ironically timed after compromising photos of boyfriend Devon Macbride and a young woman in Barcelona were blasted across gossip sites from one end of the internet to the other. It's worth noting that Devon was not present at the closing show of the tour despite a fairly regular presence at most of her dates. The R&B covers segued into a sound more familiar for fans of Rainbow, and acoustic version of Sheryl Crow's 'Strong Enough' performed entirely alone on stage - the first and only time Harlowe would be entirely unaccompanied for the night by either a guest, her band or her dancers. Armed with only her guitar she slayed her way through the emotional 90s ballad before excusing herself from the stage for another outfit change and one would imagine a moment to compose herself after nearly bringing herself to tears.
The highlight of the evening may have been a surprise appearance from one of Manchester's own. Paper Sea's guitarist Marc Hindley joined Harlowe on stage for the last stretch of the show. The duo were also joined by Youtube celebrity Daisy Clark for a collaboration on Daisy's acoustic arrangement of Paper Sea's hit Robbers. Daisy has made a name for herself on the internet video site by posting covers of the bands songs arranged for the female voice and Harlowe spoke briefly about how talented she was before they actually got into the cover iteself. Hindley and Montauk continued on with him playing guitar for Past Lives and Finding You before the show moved on to its final crescendo.
As Harlowe was preparing herself for her usual finale of 'Praying' her mother and father, Tabitha and Orin Montauk, joined her on stage. The singer was clearly taken by surprise as her mother took the microphone to read something off the screen of her phone. "At a private hearing today," she informed the crowd with tears in her eyes, "a California supreme court judge overruled the ruling that allowed Harlowe Montauk's longtime producer and accused assaulter to gain financially off all Montauk's future projects. Gottwald will no longer receive a percentage of any album or ticket sales nor will he have any claim of ownership over Harlowe's repertoire of songs."
The roar from the crowd was deafening and Montauk nearly collapsed. Close friends Max Jakobs and Alex Turner (her special guest from the previous night's show) were on hand to support her and as she gathered herself to complete her show all of her guests from the tour, going back to the first night, filtered on the stage to sing along to what has become her signature song of freedom. And for the first time since it's release, Montauk nailed the song's signature high note before collapsing into tears again. As the clock struck midnight and Christmas began it seemed that the Rainbow tour had come to a perfect end.